Author Interview: Natasha Farrant author of The Things We Did for Love

Monday, 30 April 2012

Hi! I am excited to bring you an interview with author Natasha Farrant. Author of The Things We Did for Love. I really enjoyed her novel, you can check out my review here! I hope you enjoy my interview with Natasha and don't forget to leave some comment love below!

A little about Natasha:

I’ve always wanted to write. I know everyone says that, but it’s true. I could never imagine myself doing anything else. That said, it took me a while to buckle down to it. For ages I just felt that I didn’t have anything to say, so I did the next best thing when I left university and went to work in publishing instead. I still work in publishing, and I love my job but for any aspiring writers out there who are hesitating to put pen to paper, I would just like to quote something I read recently in Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: “I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good at it.” In other words – just get on with it!

For all those that don't know what The Things We Did For Love is about. Can you tell us in a few sentences?

It’s a love story set in occupied France towards the end of World War 2. The tagline on the cover is Resistance – Heartbreak – Betrayal which I think tells you all you need about the plot without giving away the story… It’s about heroism and sacrifice and jealousy and war as well as friendship and love and finding your place in the world.

Where did you get the idea for The Things We Did For Love?

The book is inspired by true events which took place in a village close to where my parents live in France. Again, I don’t want to give away the plot, but visiting that was one of the most sobering and moving experiences of my life. You can’t help but feel the ghosts there – and being a writer, you can’t help but want to tell its story.

What has the response so for been for The Things We Did For Love?

Well, I never read reviews unless they are shoved in front of me, and people only tend to do that with good ones… So I know that I have had some lovely reviews, and my publishers tell me that “everything is on track”, which I assume means it’s going well! Seriously, though, I have had wonderful feedback from readers saying the book has been a real eye-opener for them. One told me she just couldn’t read anything else for days afterwards. That was nice.

The Things We Did For Love is your first YA book. How has the writing experenice been compared to writing adult books?

I think I was much more aware of my audience. Teenage readers are demanding – quite rightly so. I wanted to live up to those demands by paring out anything extraneous to the story while delivering a book strong on ideas, pace and emotion. I hope I’ve succeeded. It’s certainly really made me tighten up my writing.

Do you plan on writing any more YA books?

Yes! In fact, I have just delivered my next book. It’s called AFTER IRIS, it’s set in contemporary London and it’s about a family coming together again after the death of one of the siblings has blown it apart. It’s very warm and funny and sad and I love it so much sometimes I recite bits of it to myself to go to sleep… I know that sounds weird, but it’s the truth!

When I was reading The Things We Did for Love I could picture the scenes before me, the devastation of war. Do you think it helps though books, such as your novel, it helps us younger readers understand the horrors of the second world war?

I hope so. We are so exposed to images of war through the media that we have become desensitised to them. Books require us to engage with characters and story on a different level. By making us use our imagination they enable us to project something of ourselves into the narrative, and so the emotional punch can be stronger, especially if we care about the characters. I’ve always been fascinated by war and also by the disparities in the ways we apprehend it – the glamour and heroism so at odds with the miserable, brutal reality. Books can address that much better than a news bulletin ever can. Readers have told me how much they loved the village I’ve described and how they wept at the end because they felt they had lost people they loved – that can only ever be a tiny reflection of what real war feels like, but it’s a start.

Why should we read The Things We Did For Love in one sentence.

Because, to quote the Sunday Times recently, “this small novel packs in the subjects of love, first sex, betrayal, resistance and military atrocity”- it will make you cry, it will make you dream and it will make you think.